What does Street Fighting Man mean?

Street Fighting Man Lyrics

Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n roll band
cause in sleepy london town
Theres just no...

anonymous

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Meant to be a COUNTerevolutionary song, saying to the rebellious ''boy'' it's better to rebel by becoming a singer in a Rock and Roll band instead of evolving into a ''Street Fighting Man'' Revolutionist in his part of The COUNTry. This was during the 60's and 70's where the song had more of the opposite influence to inflame the minds in the social and political Revolution that was against war and for equal rights fought on the city streets and in the minds of The Americans.

anonymous

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Keith Richards once said that his inspiration for this song was Smokey Robinson and the Miracles "Going to A-Go Go", so knowing that the Stones don't like to put a whole lot of effort into writing lyrics, my theory is that whoever wrote them just thought about going to some other "event" that was happening at the time, which was protests... and how they felt about that.
Brits don't get very violent. The Stones themselves were war babies and England was the target of bombing by the Germans for several years in the Battle of Britain.
I grew up watching "Robin Hood" on Saturday mornings, which was a BBC produced half hour show starring Richard Greene, which I enjoyed until someone pointed out to me how obviously fake the fight scenes were. I think they were made that way because the Brits were so sick of violence at that time because of the horrors they witnessed during the war.
They're really a gentle culture. They have far fewer murders than we in the US do and people are generally quieter. People I know who've been there say you don't play your radio loud at the park, or driving down the street, because the police will stop you and maybe even arrest you if you don't turn it down.
Nonetheless, they did protest the Vietnam war, as people in other cultures all over the world did, and this song was interesting social commentary on how Brits like the Stones and probably many others felt about these protests: kind of awkward.. like "We're here. What do we do now?"
That's my theory anyway.

anonymous

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Yeah, I've also heard that the song was inspired by a social protest march -- I heard that it was a march led by the Pakistani activist turned novelist Tariq Ali. But there's nothing in the lyrics to confirm this: it sounds more like a complaint about the impossibility of vital activity in London, so that all an angry young man can do -- a potential street fighting man -- is join a rock 'n' roll band. What say?

anonymous

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This song is about an actual event in the 60's. Basically there was an anti-war protest outside the US embassy in London in March 1968. Mick Jagger was in the crowd and he saw mounted police attempt to control the crowd of 25,000. He found inspiration for the song in this event. But it was also a tribute to all the anti-war protests made at the time but this was the main one as he was right there at the time of the rally.